V Day

All’s fair in love and war
Or so they say
But then I hear that war is hell
So tell me, what conclusion am I to draw

Would victory have saved us
Did all our fights amount to something
Or did we merely fight battles
Forsaking the cause
Vying for the right to author our love’s story
For history is written by the conquerors

And for what
The valley of hope and aspiration is gone
Overgrown by malice and broken promise
The seeds we’d sewn together
The harvest we both, in turn, did reap

Yet, lo, there was a time
Fresh faced and ideal
When passion did trumpet the charge
And reckless we stormed
Armed only with flesh
While machine gun kisses did hammer our heart’s defenses
With unremitting fury and merciless precision

Before the politic
Before the rhetoric
When the needs of the many trumped that of the one
And bodies shown glistening from the heat of our exchange
Before the fires grew cold
Colder still, the sheets you left me lying in

Now silence sighs throughout the valley
And tenuous truce masks brutal truth
The spoils of war have spoiled us